


More Than Luck

by Cixalea



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Lucky One!au, Platonic Relationship, no beta we die like men, powers!AU, soul bonds, you can pry ot12 from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cixalea/pseuds/Cixalea
Summary: Only six of them escaped the lab.Lucky One!AU





	1. Lucky One

Jongdae fought against the nurses. Their robotic hands held him with an unbreakable grip. He was only hurting himself as he twisted and thrashed while they directed him back to the recovery room, but he took some satisfaction in knowing that he cracked one of their red visors with a headbutt.

They threw him on the gurney and strapped him down. Normally the nurses only had to do that when they were doing something particularly painful to them and they had to be kept still. Normally, Jongdae and the others tried to be as cooperative as possible out of survival. They knew there were punishments if they didn’t obey.

But Jongdae figured that since they had just staged a (hopefully partially successful) full-on escape, there would be a punishment no matter what, so he wasn’t going to pretend to be the perfect patient today. He was going down literally kicking and screaming.

Jongdae gripped the metal of the gurney railings and sent a charge through it. One of the nurses who was trying to tie down his feet was still holding the metal and twitched violently. Jongdae smiled and kicked her in the head, knocking her to the ground with a heavy thud.

More nurses came over. These ones wore thick gloves, and they managed to finish tying down Jongdae’s legs to the gurney. They carried the malfunctioned nurse away, and Jongdae relished the smell of fried circuits in the air.

Jongdae was concocting some way to do that to every nurse in the lab when he saw more nurses enter. They were escorting Sehun and Jongin, and the two climbed into their gurneys without protest. They weren’t tied down.

The nurses left immediately after, and since the nine of them broke the door when they escaped originally, the nurses couldn’t close it behind them to lock them inside. Jongdae was formulating a way to escape while they still could when he heard the Teleportation Force talking to himself.

“No, no, no,” Jongin muttered hysterically. “It was just supposed to be us.”

Jongdae was concerned. “Jongin, what happened?”

“Why are you still here?” The younger asked, his eyes wide and horrified.

“Calm down. What are you talking about?”

“Your bondmate escaped,” Jongin’s voice was trembling. “You should be with him!”

Jongdae spoke slowly. “I’d like that very much, Jongin, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m shocked that you got caught. You could have just teleported out of here the instant….”

Suddenly, he realized that the two who were captured besides him had more in common with each other than just being the youngest in their group. Jongdae felt a bolt of dread crash through him.

Jongdae sat up as best he could to try to look Jongin in the eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.”

The Teleportation Force looked away. Jongdae switched his gaze to Sehun who was similarly avoiding his eyes, picking at the thin white blanket on the gurney.

“Please tell me you didn’t get caught on purpose,” the elder begged.

Sehun closed his eyes and rolled over so that his back was to the Lightning Force.

Jongdae felt dizzy. “Chanyeol escaped. He’s trying to heal!”

“We’re not Chanyeol.” Sehun sounded so tired and so worn beyond his years.

“Do you think this is what they would have wanted?” He watched Sehun flinch. “You think Zitao and Luhan would have wanted you to keep punishing yourselves like this?”

“I can’t watch them cut your bond.” Jongin buried his head in his knees. “I can’t watch them turn you into...us.”

He didn’t have any time to respond because the nurses were back. Sehun flipped over to face them, and Jongin’s head snapped up.

The robots never spoke yet they did possess a tiny range of facial expressions. They didn’t use them often, but this time they were clearly angry when they released the breaks on Jongdae’s gurney and started to wheel him out of the room.

Jongin leapt to his feet out of instinct, but one of the nurses turned her head around 180 degrees, and he faltered, his outstretched hand falling to his side as tears cascaded down his face.

Sehun punched his gurney and collapsed back against the fabric, throwing an arm over his face to hide his crying.

The panic that the Lightning Force felt at even the insinuation of them severing his and Kyungsoo’s bond doubled as they wheeled him to an unfamiliar room. He was unstrapped and shoved against the cold wall of the windowless room, and then a heavy door slammed shut behind the nurses as they left.

The room was cold, like the ice room in a _jjimjilbang_. Jongdae wrapped his arms around himself to conserve his heat while he waited for the torture to start.

There was a metallic clanking, something that sounded like a large machine starting up just behind the walls of the room. Nothing much happened that Jongdae noticed immediately. The room just continued to get colder.

After a few more minutes, he heard another noise, something huge and heavy sliding into place with a thunk. The walls and floor shuttered, and Jongdae started to shiver. The temperature was plummeting. He could already see his breath.

It was when Jongdae realized that he couldn’t feel his toes anymore that it hit him what sort of torture he might be in for. He squatted down to try to keep as much of his own body heat as he could.

He kept a vice-like grip on the subconscious tether he had to Kyungsoo. They were going to have to pry his bond out of his cold dead fingers. Yet something told Jongdae that they might be doing exactly that.

* * *

“Junmyeon?”

The Water Force turned around to see the Power Force struggling to keep a forward momentum as they waded through the waist-high river. Junmyeon motioned for Yixing to help him.

“Kyungsoo, I know you’re tired, but you have to keep up.”

It must have taken more out of Kyungsoo than he thought to cause the earthquake that triggered their escape, but he guessed even when your power was literally strength that you still had to have limits.

The Life Force grabbed Kyungsoo’s wrist to help pull him along, and Junmyeon returned to using his ability to part a bit of the current so it wasn’t beating at them so strongly as they marched up the mountainside.

There was a large snapping sound that came from their right. It sounded like someone in an off-road vehicle. All six of them halted and strained their ears for the sound.

“They’re life energies are moving away,” Yixing finally said, and everyone’s relief was tangible.

“Let’s keep moving then.”

“On those crime shows that I use to watch in Arizona,” Chanyeol slipped a little on a rock but steadied himself at the last second so he didn’t fall on Baekhyun, “they say that if you can’t catch someone who’s escaped after 24 hours, then it’s almost impossible. So we should be home free soon.”

“Were any of those episodes about aliens escaping from a lab of crazy robot ladies?”

The Fire Force chuckled. “No. That’s on a different channel. Scifi’s kinda ruined as a genre for me since, you know, I get enough of it in real life.”

Baekhyun groaned. “My fingers are getting pruney. Do we have to stay in the river much longer?”

“I’m so c-cold,” Kyungsoo whispered.

Junmyeon was a little frustrated that even Kyungsoo was complaining. They just gained their freedom. Couldn't they be happy about that at least?

“Just until last light. We’ll find somewhere to rest after that.”

“Junmyeon’s right,” Minseok said. “We need to get as much distance between us and the lab as possible.”

“Guys, wait up.”

Junmyeon and Minseok turned around at the Light Force’s call. They saw Baekhyun was looking back at Yixing and Kyungsoo who had fallen way behind.

The Water Force couldn’t understand how the others weren’t terrified to be caught again. They had to go, go, go! “Come on! We have to hurry!”

“Something’s wrong with Kyungsoo.” Yixing was holding the Power Force up as if the younger couldn’t stand on his own.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun practically sprinted over to help. “What’s going on?”

“His life energy is strange.”

“Get him out of the water!” Baekhyun ordered.

Chanyeol and Yixing together were able to move Kyungsoo who was like dead weight. When Minseok and Junmyeon reached them, they had laid Kyungsoo on the ground since he apparently couldn’t even sit up.

Baekhyun felt the younger’s forehead. “He’s like ice.”

“Kyungsoo, look at me,” Junmyeon said with his leader voice. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

The Power Force had curled into himself and was shivering violently, his lips blue and his eyelids heavy. He opened his mouth a few times, and with some effort breathed, “J-jongdae.”

“He didn’t escape. They still have him!” Baekhyun crouched down and tugged at his hair in frustrated agony.

“Which means they’re getting to Kyungsoo through their bond.” Minseok turned to the Fire Force. “Chanyeol?”

“Already on it.” Chanyeol’s waterlogged clothes were steaming as he warmed himself up, and he pulled Kyungsoo into his lap.

“I can’t watch this. I can’t watch this happen.” Baekhyun buried himself into Yixing shoulder as the older pulled him away to the side and coached him to breathe.

“He’s not shivering anymore. That’s a good sign, right?” Chanyeol looked up at Junmyeon, desperately hoping their leader would confirm optimism.

“You can’t shiver when you’re unconscious.”

They felt the slight wave of heat as Chanyeol panicked and flared his fire hotter. The Water Force used his powers to try to extract all the moisture out of Kyungsoo’s clothes as possible and dry him off.

“So what does this mean for Sehun and Jongin?” Chanyeol shifted around so Kyungsoo sat against him more comfortably. “Do you think they got caught too?”

Junmyeon had a hand on Minseok’s shoulder. “Jongin always knows our location. If he got out of the lab’s force field, then he would have teleported to us.”

But as their leader finished speaking, Minseok and Junymeon shared another look. Chanyeol tried not to take it personally how they almost flaunted the fact they still had a perfectly intact bond—sharing way too many silent conversations.

“So we have to go back then, right?” Chanyeol looked up at the two again. “We’re going back to save them?”

Minseok and Junymeon nodded in tandem.

“Good.” Chanyeol wrapped Kyungsoo tighter. He’d always been especially protective of the youngest two since they lost their bonds. Being strong for them was just about the only thing that got him through losing Yifan.

It was a tense half an hour, but the silence was broken when Yixing announced, “He’s still out, but his life force is steady now.”

“Yeah. I can’t quite get him to his normal body temperature, but I can keep him from getting any colder.”

“So they aren’t breaking his bond?” Baekhyun asked with cautious hope. He looked around the group, but they shrugged. No one knew what this was.

Junmyeon looked at the sunset and guessed they were stopping here for the night. “Okay. Settle in. I’ll take first watch.”

Chanyeol gently moved Kyungsoo so he was laying down. Unconsciously, Kyungsoo curled into Chanyeol to make up for the warmth his body couldn’t make at the moment. Chanyeol threw his long arm over the younger.

Yixing lay down on the other side of Kyungsoo. While he didn’t have any superpowers that had to do with warmth, he figured he could at least lend his normal body heat. And this way he could closely monitor Kyungsoo’s vitals.

Baekhyun settled with his back to Chanyeol so he could dry off as he slept. Minseok never got cold, so he just lay down where there was room.

Junmyeon felt that this was his fault. Not all of them escaped, so their plan was a failure. He couldn’t let any of them suffer in that lab. They hadn’t even managed to escape for 24 hours and his mind was already spinning with the responsibility of having to go back to save Jongdae, Sehun, and Jongin. He didn’t know if he could pull it off.

He felt himself instinctively prodding for that hollow spot in his mind. There was his bond to Minseok which was large and active and healthy, but then next to it was a small empty spot where his tiny extra bond with Yifan use to be. It had disappeared a long time ago, but how he desperately wished for the Flight Force’s second opinion—or even just his confidence.

Junmyeon was the only leader now. Despite what Baekhyun thought, he knew Yifan was gone. He, Luhan, and Zitao died in the lab. That left the Water Force responsible for them all, and he couldn’t help but suspect since the two leaders had extra bonds to each other, that that meant that one leader would never be enough. Junmyeon could never be all what his brothers needed him to be.

All he was left with underneath everything was an absolute hatred for the lab. The only good thing about going back there, he thought, would be to raze the whole thing to the ground. And he could think of a few others who would volunteer in a heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) = Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) ≠ Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) ≠ Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) ≠ Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) ≠ Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) ≠ Yifan (flight)]


	2. Two Moons

“Jongdae…. Jongdae!”

Chanyeol woke to Kyungsoo’s voice calling out to his bond partner in his sleep. The younger had never returned to full consciousness since he first went under, but the closest he ever got to resurfacing was calling out the Lightning Force’s name in a tortured whisper, eerily raspy for his deep voice.

“I’m sorry, buddy.” Chanyeol shifted himself onto his side and gathered the Power Force close like a kitten. The older scolded himself for falling asleep as the fire he kindled in his core usually simmered down to embers while he slept. He now coaxed it back to a higher temperature.

Chanyeol would have thought it cute how the other gladly inched close to him. Kyungsoo had never been a cuddly person, which was quite the shame considering how small he was.

“His life energy is still steady. I wish I could tell you more.” Yixing lightly ruffled both their heads despite his sad eyes as he sat up.

As the rest of the group started to shift around restlessly, he knew that Kyungsoo had accidentally woken everyone else up too.

“Kyungsoo’s not going to give in so easily.” Junmyeon sounded proud. “He’s strength itself.”

It was so much easier to believe it when their leader said it.

Chanyeol held one of Kyungsoo’s small hands to warm the younger’s stiff fingers. It felt like holding five icicles, and Chanyeol didn’t like the colors they were turning.

When they found out Jongdae never escaped, everyone expected Kyungsoo was experiencing a slow and torturous bond cut—a punishment that seemed to fit the sort of sadistic streak of the lab. However, after an entire night, it seemed they weren’t interested in cutting the bond when they could use it to torture them both. Maybe they were being especially cruel because Kyungsoo’s natural resistance to the blue drug allowed him to be the one who used his force to get them out of the lab in the first place?

He saw Baekhyun crawl around to fill the empty space Yixing use to occupy on the other side of the Power Force, wrapping himself around Kyungsoo like a starfish.

Chanyeol chuckled. “He would hate this.”

Baekhyun smirked at him sleepily from over the top of Kyungsoo’s head. “I can get Soo snuggles without him launching me into next week so I’m taking it.”

Chanyeol suspected it might have had more to do with Baekhyun needing a hug. Even now he was still experiencing side effects from the blue drug. It always took longer to work out of his system.

“Jongdae….” Kyungsoo’s breath was shaky and strained, and now muffled against Chanyeol’s shirt.

“We’ll get him back. I promise.”

Suddenly, they heard a twig snap. Yixing flinched into action, arms up in a fighting stance.

Junmyeon leapt up. “It’s just Minseok!”

It took Yixing a second before his face relaxed and he dropped his hands.

Sure enough, Minseok appeared. “I guess I should have announced myself.”

“It’s not your fault. Even I forget that I can’t distinguish specific life energies anymore.”

Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut and gripped to Kyungsoo tighter.

Minseok sat down by Junmyeon instinctively.

“So could you find anything?”

Minseok shrugged. “I found a hiking trail sign. Didn’t really help with getting an exact location, but it was in Korean. So that narrows it down to the country at least.”

“Huh. Who’d of thought that after all this we were back in Korea the whole time?” Baekhyun mused. “At least the language won’t be a problem.”

“I really liked Chinese, to be honest. Something about it felt like it fit me.” Yixing smiled.

“Even after five years, I never quite got as fluent as I wanted in German,” Minseok shrugged, “so I’m more than fine with going back to Korean.”

“So what’s our next step?” Chanyeol let the question hang in the air.

Of course Junmyeon answered. “We can’t rescue the others yet. Baekhyun still doesn’t have his powers back, and until Kyungsoo’s back to normal, that means he and Chanyeol are out too. There’s no way we can do this with just Minseok, Yixing, and me.”

“But say Kyungsoo gets back to normal and we’re both able to fight,” Chanyeol began, “doesn’t that mean that Jongdae must have….”

“He could still be alive.” Baekhyun’s voice was edged. “Yixing and I are proof that your bond can but cut but you can still survive. If they cut Kyungsoo and Jongdae’s bond, we wouldn’t know anything else outside of that.”

Chanyeol avoided eye contact. As much as he wished that Baekhyun and Yixing weren’t a fluke, the gaping hole in Chanyeol’s mind where his bond with Yifan use to be made him understandably skeptical. Hope hurt too much.

“I think what Chanyeol was trying to point out was that if their bond was broken, Kyungsoo would be weaker,” Yixing said solemnly.

“He can’t help us at all like this though. Do you think you can warm him any more, Chanyeol?”

The Fire Force shook his head. “This is the warmest I can go and still maintain it without stopping.”

Minseok sighed. “So the best we can do for right now is try to find some shelter where we can build a fire.”

They all nodded though they knew the risks. It could inadvertently signal their position to the Red Forces. They had to get farther away.

“We should get moving again.”

Chanyeol asked Baekhyun to help situate Kyungsoo. The Power Force whimpered in protest at Chanyeol’s warmth disappearing for even just a second as Baekhyun helped move the younger onto the Fire Force’s back. When he was settled, Chanyeol flared his fire hotter for a moment, and Kyungsoo’s murmurings disappeared. He buried his frozen nose into Chanyeol’s neck.

“Okay. We’re ready.”

* * *

Six years ago

Jongin considered himself pretty acclimated to living in a big city even after just a year. His calves were toned up from constantly speed-walking to keep up with the crowds. He’d adopted a healthy annoyance for when the person in front of him was walking slowly. And he’d long since given up his personal space to squeeze himself into the last square centimeter that was left on the metro during his morning commute.

So in true city fashion, when someone bumped into him as he exited King’s Cross station on his way to the office, he thought nothing of it. It happened so often in a city so dense that culturally an apology wasn’t expected from either party. You just moved on and forgot about it.

But before Jongin could get around the person, they grabbed him again, holding on firmly to his wrist.

Jongin tried to wrestle out of the person’s grip when he finally looked at the person and realized it was Luhan.

“What are you doing here?” Jongin asked as he looked around as if the Red Force were closing in on them at that very second. “How did you even know I was here?”

But as Jongin spoke, he remembered just who he was talking to and realized just how stupid that question was.

The shorter man reached up and grabbed the sides of Jongin’s face. It was then the younger realized the other was crying.

“We escape,” Luhan said, his face smiling but voice trembling.

Jongin’s bondmate had a distant look in his eyes, sort of glazed. A sort of look one gets when one is only half in the present.

“Luhan, are you having a vision?”

The Telekinetic Force simply grabbed Jongin’s head harder and pulled him down so they were at eye level. “You _need_ to understand. We _all_ escape.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll remember.” He grabbed Luhan’s hands and tried to calm him down.

“And don’t—” Then Luhan twitched, his joints locking up harshly before his eyes rolled back.

Jongin caught him and steadied him as the other shook his head to come back to himself.

“Where am I?” Luhan asked, looking much more lucid.

Jongin answered slowly. “London.”

“Oh, yes. The conference. I flew in for a conference.” The other looked around in a daze. “Can you…?”

Jongin smiled. The younger helped Luhan hail a cab, and he even pressed a few pounds in his hand for the fare.

Before he got in the cab, Luhan hugged him and Jongin hugged back. A year of missed conversations summarized into one brief gesture.

 

The next time Jongin saw Luhan was when they were passing by in the laboratory hallways. The Red Force was careful to keep all bond partners separated.

Jongin almost forgot what that particular vision was even about until they were about to stage their escape from the lab. It hit him like a train that this was what Luhan was talking about. This must have been the future he saw. All at once he knew that he couldn’t leave. And that no one else would understand why.

The night before the escape, he told only Sehun about Luhan’s vision from six years before.

“Luhan said we’re _all_ escaping, so I’m not leaving unless it’s with him.”

Sehun nodded resolutely. He too would stay behind in the lab to wait for Zitao. It made Jongin happy that Sehun trusted Luhan’s words so blindly even though there was no more proof that Zitao was alive than Luhan.

The two had agreed not to tell the others, even Chanyeol. The Fire Force had long since given up hope that Yifan and the others were alive. He wouldn’t allow Sehun and Jongin to stay behind if he knew their plan.

So they kept it to themselves and slipped away when the chaos began. Because their bonds were already broken, there was really nothing the nurses could do to them that would be more painful than that.

Now the two youngest lay on their gurneys, gazing at the blurred ceiling as the blue drug numbed their powers and some of the brains. They tried not to think about how it had been two days since Jongdae was taken away. They were worried about the Lightning Force’s bond, but they weren’t worried about Jongdae’s life because Luhan’s prophecy applied to him too.

Jongin and Sehun staying behind was not them losing hope. It was them holding on to the only hope they had left. They would lay there—taking all the needles and tests the nurses threw at them—as long as they needed, until the day their bondmates reappeared suddenly.

Luhan did it once in London six years ago. Jongin had faith he could do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) = Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) ≠ Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) ≠ Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) ≠ Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) ≠ Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) ≠ Yifan (flight)]


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn't have many truly coherent thoughts—mostly bursts of feelings. Stiffness in his shoulders. Hunger in his stomach. Loneliness in his heart. Emptiness in his mind.
> 
> It didn't take much more than instinct to return to the spot in his subconscious where the connection should have been. He prodded at the spot often like someone checking the fridge again to see if food had manifested inside in the five-second span he'd last looked.
> 
> Something was missing there. A feeling of wrongness. Sadness.  
> S....?
> 
> Then he faded again.

* * *

 

Even as they went at as slow a pace as Junmyeon allowed, they were still forced to rest frequently.

Yixing only put a hand on his shoulder, which pulled the leader to a stop.

Junmyeon ran an exhausted hand through his hair before he asked over his shoulder quietly, “Can he last just a little longer?”

Yixing shook his head. “Chanyeol’s life energy is drained. If we push him any more, he could pass out.”

The Water Legend forced himself to nod.

“We’re stopping here for the night,” he announced with a voice that he hoped didn’t sound too strained, but when Minseok shot him a look, he guessed he failed.

When he approached Chanyeol, he couldn’t help but think the Fire Force looked like he’d been fighting Kyungsoo instead of trying to save his life. Baekhyun helped Chanyeol sit the Power Force on the ground, and he collapsed with his chest heaving.

Chanyeol looked up miserably at his leader as Junmyeon sat down next to him.

The bags under the younger’s eyes were dark and prominent. The Water Force wondered just how much longer he could keep up this constant use of his Force.

“Don’t let me fall asleep.” Chanyeol’s face was serious under all the sweat that dripped from it. “I know I look bad, and I also know that you’re somehow making this your fault in your head. But this isn’t about either of us.”

The Fire Force shocked him when he suddenly grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down close to his face.

“Kyungsoo could die, so don’t you dare let me fall asleep!”

The leader nodded. Finally Chanyeol let him go and his arm dropped to the ground with a thud.

Chanyeol was right. And it killed Junmyeon inside to keep his promise during the night. It was cruel and torturous to keep splashing Chanyeol’s face with cold water each time he closed his eyes.

The Fire Force wiped his cheeks with his sleeve, groaning miserably into the fabric. “I need conversation—something to keep me awake. Please.”

Junmyeon wracked his own tired brain for topics, but he couldn’t think of anything. Chanyeol was much better at that sort of thing. It wasn’t a surprise that he came up with a topic on his own faster than Junmyeon.

“I’ve always wondered. Did you feel it when it happened?” Chanyeol hunched over shyly like when he was feeling self-conscious about his height. “When Yifan...?”

Junmyeon rubbed a hand over his face as he nodded sadly. He could feel the places where all the stressed smiles he’d been forcing recently were leaving wrinkles on his skin. He really didn’t understand why this was the topic Chanyeol wanted to talk about, but he did understand how it could keep someone awake at night.

“My bond with him wasn’t nearly as strong as my bond with Minseok, but we did have one.” He smiled again. “It was really useful since we were the two leaders. It was nice—knowing that I always had his support.”

Junmyeon took a deep breath. Yifan just radiated strength, and being bonded to him made you feel so safe. Junmyeon remembered how confident he used to be with Yifan backing him. Now he felt like he was just pretending to be something he wasn’t, on display in front of everyone when he failed and failed.

Junmyeon continued. “When the bond broke, I wasn’t in nearly as much pain as you, but…,” the Water Force gulped thinking of the memory, “it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Junmyeon remembers the pain, confusion, fear, and then panic that fell upon him in tsunamis. It felt like someone had ripped his legs out from under him, and he’d been falling in slow motion ever since.

He caught Chanyeol’s bloodshot eyes. They were rimming with tears.

Chanyeol let out a humorless laugh as he wiped his eyes. “He always said I was such a crybaby.”

“Well, Yifan was very perceptive.”

Chanyeol chuckled. “That’s a good joke.”

“Glad it made you laugh.”

The two looked at each other. They knew Yifan on a level that was deeper than any of the others, so they could joke about Yifan’s famous obliviousness. Because they knew that even though Yifan was usually the very last to get a joke, he was the first to pull you into a hug. When you were in Yifan’s arms, nothing could hurt you.

Junmyeon ruffled Chanyeol’s hair, styling it into funny shapes because it was still damp from being splashed. Chanyeol giggled and complained halfheartedly.

Fire and water. They were supposed to be opposites—something primal in them should have clashed. Instead, they defied fate.

They told each other the worst puns they could, just to watch the other cringe at the corniness. They spent the night making each other laugh, and they mostly succeeded in distracting themselves from the bitterness of reality—even if just for a little while.

* * *

Breathing was painful for Jongdae. The skin on his cheek where it lay smashed against the frozen floor when he collapsed felt like he had his face on a frying pan. Misery wracked his exhausted muscles that were shivering uncontrollably. He had barely enough awareness to wonder why his body hadn’t given out by now.

He was hallucinating for sure, though it was hard to remember that he was while it was happening. He was seeing Kyungsoo mostly. Sometimes he was just sitting next to him silently. Sometimes he was yelling at him when Jongdae started to think it might be easier to give up. But other times he thought he saw Chanyeol hugging him tightly, warming him with his fire. There was one time he even saw Luhan suspended in time in a dark room. But the best ones were the ones when everyone was all together, crammed in Jongdae’s house in Almaty.

He knew none of these things were possible, but he welcomed them with open arms if it meant distracting him from the unbearable torture.

His brain felt like ice cream so it took him much longer than it should have for him to realize that there was something strange about the fact he wasn’t already frozen to death.

“I’m helping you, you dummy,” Hallucination-Kyungsoo told him.

“Okay.” Jongdae smiled, accepting it easily. “Thanks, Soo.”

Kyungsoo’s heavy brows bent his face into a pitied expression, and every frozen fiber of Jongdae’s being wanted to make that look go away.

“Your face will get stuck like that if you’re not careful. And what would you have without your face?”

If anyone knew of Jongdae’s defense mechanisms, it was his own bondmate. He didn’t laugh, didn’t fall for the bait.

“I’ll find a way to save you,” Kyungsoo promised.

Jongdae sighed. Kyungsoo had the same problem as Junmyeon where he took too much of life onto his shoulders because he thought he could carry it. This hallucination was sure close to the real thing.

“You’re very convincing. But of course you would be. You’re from my imagination.”

Kyungsoo seemed to ignore him. “Just hold on a little longer for me. Okay?”

Jongdae let out a tired laugh. Even with imaginary-Kyungsoo, there was no arguing with him.

“Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.”

* * *

They didn’t get much farther the next day. Chanyeol could only make it until about noon before his knees gave out.

They weren’t in an ideal place, but they did manage to clear away a spot on the ground where they could build a fire that wouldn’t set the whole forest alight.

Chanyeol attempted to light the pile of branches they set up, but all he could summon was a cigarette lighter–sized flame off the tip of his index finger. The rest of them managed to use that as a start and build that flame bigger and bigger until the whole pile of wood was burning brightly.

The instant Kyungsoo was off his back and they were sure the fire was holding, Chanyeol fell asleep. While they weren’t worried about Chanyeol, now they had to worry about being found by the Red Force again.

They had to start doing watches during the day now. They couldn’t leave anything to chance, especially when Yixing’s powers were so weak.

Baekhyun hated being on watch. All he could really do for his four-hour shift was play with the little firefly-sized lights that he was able to summon, but he banished the lights instantly when he heard a groaning from Kyungsoo as with shaking limbs he forced himself to sit upright.

Baekhyun had to restrain himself from screaming with joy and waking the others up. He rushed over to Kyungsoo and wrapped the younger in a hug.

Then it hit him. Kyungsoo was awake.

He pulled back and looked Kyungsoo in the eyes. He looked really foggy, not quite there and disoriented, and Baekhyun couldn’t help but assume the worst.

“How’s your bond?”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrowed, but he slowly nodded. “Okay,” he croaked out. “I’m fine too. Thanks for asking.”

Baekhyun felt tears filling his eyes. Oh, how he missed Kyungsoo’s deep voice.

“Sorry it’s taken us this long to get a fire going. We had to be sure we were far enough away first.”

Kyungsoo nodded stiffly and rubbed at his face. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Soo?”

Baekhyun had to take a double-take to make sure it really was Chanyeol who had woken up. He had been sure that the Fire Force could have slept through one of Kyungsoo’s earthquakes at this point.

“Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol threw his long limbs around the smaller, gripping the Power Force’s shoulders and letting his head hang down. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you more. I’m just not strong enough to….”

But he didn’t get to finish as Kyungsoo wrapped the Fire Force in a back-breaking hug.

He heard the Power Force take in a shuddering breath. “You saved our lives. Both mine and Jongdae’s.”

Kyungsoo withdrew his arms and sat back, covering his eyes with his arm. “Thank you.”

Kyungsoo never did anything loud. Even his crying was silent. The only thing they heard were the gasps of air he took while he shook.

The two had never seen the Power Force look so weak. Chanyeol and Baekhyun both threw themselves around the younger, and he crumbled into them instinctively.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be crying to you two of all people.”

Baekhyun shook his head furiously. “We know what it’s like to have our bonds broken, but that just means we’d fight even harder to prevent that from happening to you.”

“You’re our brothers, and we would tear down the sky for you both.”

Kyungsoo took one look up at Chanyeol’s exhausted face and even more tears poured down his face. “I know.”

It didn’t take long for Junmyeon, Minseok, and Yixing to realize what all the commotion was about. They too joined the hugging and weeping. Kyungsoo hated being the center of all the attention, but it was impossible to curl away when you were being hugged by five people.

Kyungsoo still had to be kept close to the fire, but that seemed to solve everything. Yixing hovered close by just keep his eye on the younger’s vitals, so that left the rest of them to come up with where they would go from there.

The simple answer was nowhere—at least until Chanyeol was able to recover enough. They concluded they could leap frog in a way, building fires whenever Chanyeol got tired of backpacking Kyungsoo. It seemed like their only option, but it still carried the risk of being slow and also involved leaving a very obvious trail for the Red Force to follow.

Baekhyun turned back to look at Kyungsoo and Yixing. He was feeling a little left out of the conversation when Junmyeon and Minseok kept having much of the discussion over their bond instead of outloud. But because of that, he was watching when Kyungsoo sat up quickly, an arm flying to Yixing while his eyes blew wide with fear.

He saw Yixing ask what was wrong, but Kyungsoo’s eyes glazed over. Baekhyun’s heart started to pound.

As Baekhyun moved to join the two and see what was going on, Kyungsoo let out a horrified gasp as if he had just been sucker punched in the gut.

Then the Power Force’s hands flew to his chest as he cried out in unbearable pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) = Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) ≠ Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) ≠ Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) ≠ Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) ≠ Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) ≠ Yifan (flight)]


	4. For Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It felt like being trapped in a maze. High concrete walls. Impenetrable force fields. No ceiling.  
> Wandering round and round in a void. Pointless. Exhausting.  
> Had he been down this corridor before?   
> Where was the exit?  
> Or maybe he wasn't in a maze at all.  
> Maybe he was in a labyrinth.  
> A labyri....  
> A lab....

Jongdae desperately hoped that the nurses would just give up. Thanks to whatever real-Kyungsoo was doing, there was nothing they could do to freeze him anymore. He’d actually napped comfortably in the ice chamber. He was still weak from lack of food, but he didn’t have the exhaustion that came from trying to keep his body warm.

He hoped the reason they kept using Minseok’s power to torture him was that they didn’t have other power orbs made yet—like Junmyeon’s or Chanyeol’s. He knew there was nothing Kyungsoo could do to help him if they tried to drown him or burn him. He tried not to think about that.

When the ice chamber opened, the robot nurses wheeled in something on a cart. That was new.

Jongdae stood up to try to size up the situation, but he knew that he couldn’t escape. His heartbeat increased as he tried to imagine what sort of horrors they’d come up with for him.

One of the nurses put on thick gloves and opened the lid of a box on the cart. Then she picked up a pair of large tongs and stuck it into the box. She withdrew an icy blue orb, and Jongdae knew that had to be it. That had to be the power orb that contained all the energy they had extracted from Minseok—what powered the ice chamber.

It was a lot smaller than he thought—about the size of a baseball, but he knew from the power coming off of it that it was dangerous.

Instinctively, he reached out for his bond partner. If there was anything Kyungsoo needed to get ready so he could help him, he needed to do it now.

The nurse approached him, the light blue orb held out toward him. There wasn’t much room for Jongdae to move before his back hit the wall.

Ice crystals started to grow on the metal of the tongs, spiring out in long daggers. The nurse as always didn’t show any emotion as the frost crawled down the metal toward her hands.

Jongdae squinted his eyes closed and turned his head away, but when the orb finally came into contact with his chest, the Lightning Force’s eyes flew open and all the air was knocked out of him.  
  
The pain was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He didn’t notice that two more nurses had grabbed his arms so that he couldn’t move despite his animalistic thrashing to get away.

He wanted to beg them to stop, but all he could do was scream.

His only coherent thought was a desperate apology to Kyungsoo. Jongdae was actually getting the easy part of the deal. He wouldn’t have to be the one living with the pain of having lost a bond partner.

He could feel the darkness closing in. It was only a matter of time now. Jongdae welcomed it selfishly. He could beg Kyungsoo for forgiveness in the afterlife.

Suddenly Jongdae felt a pain zap through his head. Maybe his brain was shutting down? But he felt it again, and suddenly he felt warmer.

He still felt the excruciating pain, but he had to open his eyes to make sure. The nurses indeed still had the orb touching him, but Jongdae could breathe a little better.

Jongdae realized he could feel his lightning for the first time since he was brought to the ice chamber. He tried to see if he could actually summon some, and to his utter shock he saw some sparks shoot out through his fingertips.

There was another shooting pain, but with it came another surge of power. This time his lightning came unprompted. It danced on his hands and up his forearms, warding away the cold.

The headaches were coming faster and more powerfully now. With each burst, he felt his lightning awakening until it absolutely coated his entire body in dancing electricity.

The nurses that held him in place started to twitch, their robotic joints locking and unlocking as the lightning crawled up their hands.

Lightning was extremely quick energy—heat, and that was the complete opposite of cold. When he concentrated, he centered the lightning where the orb was in contact with his chest and the cold suddenly disappeared.

As the nurses looked at each other, communicating in that silent way they did, Jongdae felt yet another pain through his head. Now that he was a little less distracted, he realized it was coming through his bond.

Kyungsoo was able to control earth to some degree, but his actual force was strength. He was essentially a battery.

Kyungsoo was strengthening his lightning through the bond.

Now that he wasn’t in pain, he could open the bond fully, and when he did, he felt a landslide of energy sweep through him. It came so fast that Jongdae wasn’t sure what to do with all of it before it built up inside of him to maximum capacity.

The lightning burst out of him like a supernova, the entire room blinded in a brilliant light in an instant. There were horrifying sounds of circuits frying, wires shorting out, and light bulbs bursting. And the energy just kept coming.

Jongdae laughed. He tried to regain control and pushed the lightning as far as he could. It’d be such a shame if he only destroyed the nurses in the ice chamber, after all. With Kyungsoo’s constant supply of energy, Jongdae raised his arms and pushed as much of the energy into the ceiling as he could. He would destroy this building and end their suffering once and for all.

Jongdae built up one last charge. With a mighty roar, he sent all the energy Kyungsoo could give him plus all that Jongdae had left into a bolt that split the ceiling of the ice chamber and ended with a sonic boom that shook the building.

Something inside Jongdae’s mind  _ snapped _ .

As the flash of the lightning faded, Kyungsoo’s power stopped flowing into him completely. Jongdae felt like a rug had been pulled out from under him. He reached for the bond on instinct, but to his horror he felt a sucking void where there should have been Kyungsoo.

He felt his knees wobble and caught himself on the wall. Inside his mind, Jongdae pounded against the empty space, slamming his consciousness repeatedly against the block like he would against a locked door. This couldn’t be happening.

Kyungsoo. Where was Kyungsoo? Jongdae clenched the sides of his head and tried to keep his head from imploding now that it was so empty.

Jongdae stumbled forward. He had to get out of here. He had to get to Kyungsoo.

The nurses lay in scorched messes on the ground, half melted from being too close to his lightning storm. The only thing that seemed intact was Minseok’s power orb which was quickly amassing a large ice crystal patch on one nurse’s faces where it had rolled against her after she shorted out and collapsed with it.

He wasn’t sure what he should do with the orb, but his mind wasn’t able to process much except that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything would be okay if he could just get back to Kyungsoo.

The ice chamber door had malfunctioned and was now open wide. He moved out into the dark hallway.

He had to find Sehun and Jongin. He frankly didn’t care at all for why they wanted to stay in the lab. Jongin could take him to Kyungsoo, and he would do anything to convince him to so.

* * *

“Is he okay?” Baekhyun asked, while Junmyeon pulled Kyungsoo out of the crater he created.

They immediately handed him off to Chanyeol, but the Fire Force smiled. “He’s not cold!”

Kyungsoo let out some pained groans as he was jostled around, but he seemed like he was having a hard time coming back from passing out after he caused half the mountainside to collapse.

Yixing ran his fingers lightly over the younger, and his long digits hovered over Kyungsoo’s head a bit too long. Baekhyun, perceptive as he was, noticed his former bondmate’s hands tremble, and he knew what happened.

“No. No, they didn’t.” But even as the Light Force declared it, tears streamed down his face.

“What do you mean?” Chanyeol asked, his eyes wide and innocent.

The others couldn’t bear to answer.

“We did it. He’s safe. Look! We worked so hard, and we saved him!” Chanyeol’s voice was frantic.

Kyungsoo took a huge gasp of air as his eyes flung open. He immediately pushed himself out of Chanyeol’s arms and smashed two palms against the sides of his head as if he were hearing a loud noise.

Junmyeon reached out to steady the younger, but Kyungsoo screamed, “Don’t touch me!”

The Power Force paced in a circle on wobbling feet, clawing at his head and moaning in pain. 

They watched him for a few laps before Baekhyun couldn’t stand it. He intercepted the younger and pried his hands off his head. Kyungsoo fought him, but without his bond, he wasn’t much stronger than any of the rest of them.

Baekhyun brought Kyungsoo’s arms down to his sides and then wrapped him in a hug—restraining him like a child throwing a tantrum until he tired.

Chanyeol must have finally accepted it. He picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could into the distance, swearing and throwing sparks everywhere. He immediately latched onto Yixing when he came over to comfort him. Chanyeol sobbed into his chest that it just wasn’t fair.

“I’m so sorry that they did this to you, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun tried to look the other in the eyes, but Kyungsoo was still too deep inside his own head, his dark eyes glazed and frightened.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Kyungsoo’s voice shook. “I broke it.”

Baekhyun flinched. “What do you mean?”

“I sent too much of my power through the bond. I...I think I overloaded it.”

No one dared even blink. The horror of it was something they could barely comprehend.

Kyungsoo closed his eyes tightly and threw his head back. “I broke my own bond!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soul Bonds:  
> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) ≠ Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) ≠ Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) ≠ Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) ≠ Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) ≠ Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) ≠ Yifan (flight)]


	5. 5

As Kyungsoo wallowed in unfathomable misery, there was a loud crash down the mountain. Junmyeon flinched, his eyes drawn toward the sound.

To his horror, there were robots.

These weren’t at all like the female robots in the lab—the ones who had pretty but blank faces. These were the lab’s battlebots—dressed in black armor and faces covered with visored helmets. There were twelve types, each designed to counter a specific one of their powers. These were the same kind that captured them in the first place.

They’d been found. The lab was trying to recapture them.

The sky darkened as Junmyeon and Minseok stepped in front of the group, their eyes identically furious and united in their resolve.

Some of the others might have protested, yelling at them to get out of there, but Minseok and Junmyeon ignored them. The two knew that they were the only ones who were powerful enough to protect the group now. This was their fight.

Junmyeon raised both his hands to the sky, palms flat to the heavens. Then he clenched his fists, and rain started to pour from the sky. Minseok threw both his hands forward, his fingers bent like claws, which caused the rain that fell on the robots to freeze them in place.

From the massive downpour, the ice built up quickly, but it did little to actually stop them. The lab knew that these were the only two left who were bonded and therefore the biggest and only threat. These robots they sent were especially designed to counter Minseok and Junmyeon’s powers. They didn’t run on any hydraulic fluid or liquid batteries, they wore waterproof clothing which covered their joints, and instead of guns which could malfunction in water and the cold, they carried billy clubs. The army snapped themselves free easily of the ice and continued their ascent up the mountainside.

Junmyeon started gathering big blobs of water, and without talking, Minseok froze them and sent them hurling down at their opponents. This knocked a few of them back, but it was just a drop in the bucket.

As they got closer, the bonded pair changed tactics again. They started building an ice wall, building it thicker layer by layer as wide as they dared and as quickly as they could, but because of the sheer numbers, there were some who were walking around the edges.

“No, you don’t!” The two spoke in tandem as only bondmates could.

They shot more ice balls at the ones trying to get around the wall, knocking them back, but every second they focused on those, more were using their clubs to beat at the ice wall itself. There were just too many.

“Get out of here!” Junmyeon ordered over his shoulder. “Find somewhere more defensible!”

“We’re not leaving you!” Baekhyun shouted, but Yixing grabbed his arm before he could run down to join them.

“There’s nothing we can do to help them.” His voice was pleading. “We have to get out of here.”

Baekhyun ripped himself from his ex-bondmate’s grip and gave their leader and their oldest one last look before they went to join Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.

They ran up the mountain as fast as they could. The ground underneath them was unsteady, shaken loose by Kyungsoo’s landslide from earlier, so it was even slower going than it should have been.

The robots who managed to get around Junmyeon and Minseok were gaining quickly. And when the group hit a rocky cliff, they were brought to a standstill.

“Start climbing!” Chanyeol ordered, stepping in front of the group. He waved his arms and managed to start a tiny brush fire. Maybe that could buy them some time.

He tried to coax the flames bigger with some success, but it didn’t seem to slow the robots at all.

They marched right through the fire, and Chanyeol backed away until his back hit rock.

The robots raised their batons, and Chanyeol flinched, his hands raised to try to protect his face.

Suddenly, something exploded in front of him. Chanyeol blinked open one eye to see several figures standing in the clearing dust where many of the robots were a moment prior. The Fire Force’s eyes were drawn inexplicably to the tallest one.

The tall figure slowly turned around, and Chanyeol’s heart leapt in his chest.

It couldn’t be.

Chanyeol’s eyes started to tear as the figure moved toward him, wrapping him in a hug. The only person who could make the Fire Force feel small.

“You’re such a crybaby.”

“Y-yifan?”

Chanyeol was in such shock that he didn’t even register when a second person put one hand on Yifan’s head and one on Chanyeol’s.

Suddenly, something started to wind backward in Chanyeol’s mind. It was unpleasant, like a cat being petted the wrong way, but before he could complain, something clicked into place.

A warm feeling of rightness rushed into Chanyeol’s brain. Hesitantly, he touched the place where his bond use to be, and instead of the cold void, there was a vibrant tether to Yifan who was very much alive and in front of him.

Chanyeol’s eyes blew wide and a real smile for the first time in a long time stretched his face out. He threw himself at Yifan, squeezing the other tightly and bathing his subconscious inside the newly reformed bond.

There was a rush of energy flowing through, and Chanyeol finally felt like he could breathe again.

Over Yifan’s shoulder, he was shocked to see Luhan and Jongin standing in front of the group, holding back the advancing robots with ease. Zitao was the one who was next to him and Sehun was by his side as he should be. Chanyeol suddenly felt guilty. He’d have to apologize to the younger two later.

He caught a glimpse of Jongdae limping past Chanyeol toward where the rest of them had tried to climb up the mountain.

Kyungsoo threw himself off the cliffside with abandon in order to get to Jongdae faster, and Zitao ran over quickly and managed to slow Kyungsoo’s decent so he wouldn’t hurt himself. When Kyungsoo reached the ground, he and his bondmate embraced each other desperately, each apologizing unnecessarily.

Zitao walked over with a fond look on his face and repeated the same process that he had with Chanyeol and Yifan. He rewound the time connected to the two’s bond until it was back to when their bond was still intact. Because it hadn’t been broken for very long, the process was very quick. Chanyeol could see the moment their connection was returned as the look of relief on their faces was obvious.

Chanyeol turned back to Yifan as Zitao repaired Baekhyun and Yixing’s bond. His bondmate gave gave him a knowing look.

“Let’s destroy these robots.”

Chanyeol nodded, reaching for his power and reveling in how much there was available at his fingertips again.

The Fire Force pulled and flames exploded out of him into the shape of a phoenix. There was another eruption, and Yifan’s dragon summon took its place next to his phoenix.

Chanyeol laughed, absolutely high with being able to use his true power again. With a flick of their hands, the dragon and phoenix descended down upon the robots. Chanyeol would be sure to melt each and every one of them.

“Send them to help Junmyeon and Minseok. They’re in trouble!” Yixing ordered.

Without hesitation, the two creatures descended down over the battleline Luhan and Jongin were maintaining.

This changed everything.

* * *

**Earlier**

It had been almost one year.

That was Zitao’s first thought after the time bubble around him collapsed and he reentered the stream of normal time again.

Zitao, being connected to time, instantly knew how long he’d been separated from the present. He saw his power orb that had kept him and the other two Forces frozen in time was still sitting on the pedestal that powered it in the middle of the room, but the orb wasn't glowing anymore, dull and dormant for some reason.

He groaned as he pushed himself up on shaky limbs where he had been dropped to the ground.

It had been almost a year since he’d been shoved into the time distortion room.

When the nurses first brought him inside the chamber, the sight of Yifan and Luhan suspended in midair over Zitao’s own power orb momentarily distracted him from the head-splitting ache of having just lost his bond to Sehun.

Sehun!

As he thought of his bondmate, the painful loneliness resumed its pounding inside Zitao’s head. He held his head and whimpered. The wound was just as fresh as it was a year ago when he was stuck in time originally.

“Zitao?”

The Time Force whipped his head to the left to see Yifan looking at him through eyes squinted and disoriented.

Zitao crawled over and practically fell on the older, weeping. “We thought you were dead!”

They heard Luhan collapse against the wall as he tried to stand up too fast. Yifan pushed Zitao off gently so he could stand himself. He slowly walked over so he could help Luhan.

“Take it easy,” Yifan told him.

As soon as Luhan was on his feet, he made for the door again. “Jongin’s waiting for me. I have to go to him.”

“I’ve been here for one year,” Zitao said softly from the floor. “And you two were stuck in here a year longer than me. You’ve missed two whole years.”

Yifan’s eyes grew wide, and Luhan stilled at Zitao’s words.

“After that long with the kind of torture they were doing to us, the others could be….” The Time Force couldn’t continue.

Luhan sent Zitao a chilling glare. “Jongin is waiting for me.” Then he continued to walk out of the room, a little steadier after resting a moment.

“They better not be,” Yifan said as he followed Luhan. “I’ll kill Junmyeon if he hasn’t gotten them out of here in two years.”

The three of them had never seen the lab this dark. There weren't any lights on in the hallways nor any light coming in from any of the other rooms they passed. When they came across a nurse, they flinched instinctively, but she was on the ground unmoving.

“See?” Yifan prodded at the nurse with his foot. “They must have destroyed her when they were escaping.”

“Do you hear that?”

The three of them got silent at Luhan’s words. Sure enough, they heard voices in the distance. The followed the sound until it brought them to the recovery room where they spent most of their time while in the lab.

When they entered the room, they froze.

Staring back at them were three familiar faces who wore similar expressions of shock.

“Am I still hallucinating?” Jongdae held his head.

After the Lightning Force shattered the silence, Sehun and Zitao ran toward each other, crushing the other in a hug.

“I did what you said. I waited.” Jongin shook as Luhan approached him. “But my eyes still can’t believe that you’re really here.”

Luhan smiled softly and held the other as he crumbled into himself and cried tears of joy.

“Where are the others?” Yifan asked, though everyone knew he meant, “ _ Where’s Chanyeol?” _

Jongdae answered with a trembling voice. “They escaped. They’re with Kyungsoo. I need to get to Kyungsoo.”

Yifan put a huge hand on Jongdae’s shoulder as the other rocked in place while holding his head, muttering Kyungsoo’s name.

“Jongin, can you take us?” the Flight Legend asked with his leader voice.

“I can barely teleport myself,” the younger wrapped arms around himself. “There’s no way I can take other people.”

“But two years ago you could, right?” Zitao said brightly. “I’ll just rewind the time connected to our bonds back to before they were broken!”

“But _our_ bond is broken  _ now _ . Are you powerful enough to do that on your own strength?” Sehun asked.

“We can find out.” Zitao put a hand to his own temple and the other hand on Sehun’s.

The two immediately scrunched their faces in discomfort, and the longer it took, the heavier their breathing became until Sehun flinched in pain.

“Zitao, is it working?”

The Time Legend opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was a gasp of pain. Zitao started to shake before finally he withdrew his hands like he’d touched a hot stove.

The two bondmates backed away from each other, groaning loudly.

“I can’t.” Zitao held his head and breathed harshly like he’d just run a marathon. “Sehun’s bond has been broken for a year, but because I was stuck in time just after our bond broke, my end of the bond has only been broken for a day. It won’t work unless I bring our bonds back to the same point in time simultaneously. I could do it if my bond was intact, but that’s the problem.”

“So that’s it? We’re stuck like this forever?” Jongin asked Luhan. “You must have seen a vision past this point in time. Tell me we find a way!”

“The power orb!” Yifan exclaimed. “The power orb alone was able to keep us stuck in time for two years. Could you use the power orb to help you?”

By that point, Zitao and Sehun were already running down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soul Bonds:  
> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) = Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) = Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) = Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) = Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) = Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) ≠ Yifan (flight)]


	6. 6

While fighting with a bond had the obvious advantage of making your powers stronger, it definitely had a downside too.

This far into the battle, Junmyeon was way beyond distinguishing which of the pains he was feeling were his own injuries and which were Minseok’s second-handed through their mental connection. All of those lines blurred together, and they only merged their minds more as they lost more and more ground.

One of them got knocked in the head from behind, and Junmyeon only knew it was him because when he opened his eyes, he was on his hands and knees staring at the muddy ground.

The battle bots pounced, swinging their clubs down on him. The Water Force had no choice but to curl up and try to protect his head.

He felt Minseok’s panic and heard him cry out to him in his mind, but he couldn’t reach him. There were too many.

Junmyeon tried to crawl away, but they beat him down, kicked him, until he was rolled around between the bots like a bloodied pinball.

Humans would have stopped by this point. Clearly Junmyeon couldn’t fight anymore. But the robots were robots. They had to be told to stop. Apparently, no one had issued that command yet.

As the edges around Junmyeon’s vision started to go fuzzy, he fought it. He clawed to remain conscious. There was no way he and Minseok were going to win, but he was the leader. No matter what, he wouldn’t take the easy way out.

For a brief moment, he wondered if this was a bit of justice being served. He was a failure as a leader. Three of his members were killed and three more were still suffering in the lab, and that all happened under his watch. Maybe it was only right that he suffer like this?

Suddenly the beating stopped. The pain didn’t cease, but he couldn’t feel batons coming down on every part of his body anymore.

Junmyeon tried to open his eyes, but his right eye was swollen completely shut and he found he didn’t have the strength to even lift his face out of the mud.

Something jostled him around, lifted him up off the ground not quite gently. He was in such pain from the contact that he didn’t really register that the ground was falling away beneath him and that soon he was above the trees.

The next thing he knew, was a soothing warmth. It felt prickly and tingly, but soon the pain was subsided and Junmyeon could finally breathe without cringing.

He immediately reached out in his mind for Minseok, and he found that the Ice Force was still in incredible agony. Junmyeon shoved the warmth that he could now distinguish as a pair of hands away, and he croaked out his bondmate’s name.

“He’s stable now, right, Yixing? Go ahead and help Minseok. I got him.”

Junmyeon groaned and stiffened up as the pain returned though not quite as intensely. He felt a different pair of hands on him, wiping something off his face with a cloth.

“Zitao, get over here. You’ve still got one bond left to fix.”

There was that voice again. Junmyeon felt himself turn slightly toward the deep sound, but he couldn’t open his eyes yet. It was still too painful.

There were feather-light fingers grazing the side of his head, and something started to happen inside Junmyeon’s mind. There was a foreign presence, and it was touching at the mindspace where his bonds were. Junmyeon flinched and tensed up.

“Don’t fight me.”

Junmyeon thought he knew that voice too, but he didn’t waste time trying to identify it. He was starting to panic. Something was inside his brain and messing with the most precious thing in his life. He would rather die.

Despite how painful it was, he rolled away and brought his arms up to cover his head as if he were still being beaten by the robots.

“Please,” Junmyeon begged. The plea was purely instinctive because he knew in reality that it was no use. He was weak, and the lab could do whatever they wanted to him. Take anything they wanted from him.

“Stop! I’m trying to help you!”

The heavy hands from earlier returned. They grabbed his upper arms and held them down, pinning him with his back to the cold earth.

“Do it quickly.”

As much as Junmyeon was curious initially about this first deep voice, he couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

The mental invasion resumed and no matter how Junmyeon struggled, he was pressed down firmly. He was strapped to a gurney again. He was going to go in for another round of testing. Maybe they would break his bond this time? Had they even escaped at all?

The panic attack that was working its way up the Water Force’s throat stopped when something clicked in Junmyeon’s mind.

The foreign presence withdrew and there was a sudden surge of energy. Everything stopped.

He immediately checked over his bond. His tether to Minseok was still as active and healthy as ever. His bondmate was experiencing a blessed relief from his pain, and Junmyeon had barely enough time to wonder why when he accidentally bumped into something else in his mind.

He hesitantly prodded toward the little leader bond. Surely it was just wishful thinking. But as he reached for it, he felt something bright and alive where there had once been darkness and pain.

Junmyeon grasped the tether firmly. He couldn’t breathe. How could this be?

Something gently answered through that bond. He’d never been able to talk to Yifan like he could with Minseok over a bond. The bond was only big enough for strong emotions to slip through.

But what emotion was coming over the channel was one of cautious but happy reunion.

Junmyeon’s eyes flew open. He didn’t care about the blinding pain. He had to see for himself.

Sure enough. There he was, looking exactly like the day he died—the day they  _ thought _ he died.

“Long time, no see.”

Junmyeon’s brain completely melted. He stared at the other for a few seconds with his jaw open wide enough to catch flies. Then he slowly curled into himself, covering his eyes with his hands as he broke into sobs.

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”

Yifan held him close like the crying child he was. Junmyeon’s big brother was back from the dead. He just needed to be weak for a second.

Wordlessly, the Water Force let all his insecurities, his guilt, his shame flow over the bond in a tsunami. He’d failed so awfully. He couldn’t face him.  
  
“I’m sorry. I tried, but I just couldn’t….”

Junmyeon only got reassurances over their bond.

“You kept them alive alone for two years. I’m so proud of you.”

Yifan’s dragon nudged at the Water Force’s shoulder. The summon always had a soft spot for his master’s co-leader.

Junmyeon let himself smile a little as he rubbed the dragon’s snout. “Thank you for getting me away from those robots earlier.”

The dragon gave a satisfied snort. Then it turned its head to look back at the battle. It knocked Yifan in the head with his horns on accident, but the Flight Force was more than use to it.

“Go wreck some more house, you big lizard.” Yifan shoved the dragon’s head away, and the dragon didn’t need any more encouragement to launch itself into the sky again.

Minseok suddenly appeared with Yixing by his side.

“Are you okay?” the Ice Force asked, frowning at the bruises still coating his bondmate’s skin.

“He’d be okay if he’d just give me a second to actually heal him. Stubborn kid,” Yixing joked.

As the Life Force resumed healing him, Junmyeon looked at Zitao and Yifan. “How?” he said in disbelief.

“It’s a long story,” Yifan trailed off.

“It’s really not. I saved the day by repairing all our bonds. The end.” Zitao ran a hand through his hair. “You’re welcome.”

“But who stopped your power orb and got you out of the time bubble so that you could repair everyone’s bonds?”

Zitao shrugged. “Okay so some of the details are still hazy, but no one can argue that I’m the hero, right?”

“Hey, ‘hero’! Quit slacking and help destroy robots!” Sehun called from across the way.

“Fine,” Zitao whined as he got to his feet again. “This conversation isn’t over though. We still have to discuss how you all are repaying me for saving the day. And just to let you know, it will probably involve lots of food. Like steak or something.”

“Seriously, Zitao. Less talk. More destruction.”

* * *

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Chanyeol grinned maniacally as he rose his hand victorious.

Jongdae launched himself at Kyungsoo, fake strangling him. “Why! Why do you always choose rock?!”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “It’s not that big a deal who gets to destroy the facility as long as it gets destroyed.”

“And thanks to Kyungsoo being the literally most predictable rock, paper, scissors player ever, our team gets to do it!” Chanyeol fistbumped with Yifan.

After they got their bonds back, destroying all of the lab’s remaining robots was laughably easy, but even when the last bot was disintegrated, they couldn’t let themselves rest quite yet. They still had to make sure that the lab was completely demolished.

“I still wanted us to do it though,” Jongdae whined as he crossed his arms.

“Okay, but you have to admit that a dragon and a phoenix destroying the facility is going to be extremely satisfying,” Baekhyun mused. “It’s gonna be like Godzilla.”

Finally, they spotted their brothers walking out of the lab.

“We got them!” Zitao called, holding his orange power orb up.

Minseok held his light blue orb in his hand too. “We couldn’t find any other orbs, so hopefully these were the only two.”

“Alright! Let’s get this party started!”

Yifan and Chanyeol released their summons, the dragon and phoenix bursting into the air in a great ball of flames.

Jongdae wouldn’t admit it outloud, but Baekhyun was right. There was just something so great about watching the place where they’d been tortured in for the past three years be ripped apart indiscriminately by a dragon’s teeth and reduced to utter oblivion by a phoenix’s fire.

They had been watching it burn for about five minutes when there was a horrible sound of collapsing metal. They thought it was just the building’s structure giving way, but the ground started to shift too.

Soon the ground parted open like a huge mouth. The phoenix screeched in alarm and flew up and away from the building, the dragon quickly following suit. Then the building was swallowed up. With a mighty clap, the ground closed around the building and crushed every bit of it between the earth.

“Hey!” Chanyeol whined.

Kyungsoo shrugged. “Your summons weren’t going to be able to destroy all the underground floors, so….”

Jongdae cackled and summoned a huge bolt of lightning that scorched the spot where the lab sank into the core of the planet. 

“You’re all children,” Minseok teased.

Then Yixing caused vegetation to grow and completely cover up the area where the lab use to be with dense foliage. There was now absolutely no sign that the lab had ever even been there.

As they found themselves staring at just another part of the forest, they all felt an incredible sigh of relief.

“So where do we go from here then?” Chanyeol asked as he banished his phoenix.

“Wherever we’re going, we going together,” Sehun declared.

Baekhyun cooed and patted their youngest’s head. The Wind Force blushed and crossed his arms, trying to maintain his confident posture. Zitao just laughed at his bondmate.

Jongdae smiled. “I think I know a place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soul Bonds:  
> Junmyeon (water) = Minseok (ice)  
> Kyungsoo (strength) = Jongdae (lightning)  
> Baekhyun (light) = Yixing (life)  
> Sehun (wind) = Zitao (time)  
> Jongin (teleportation) = Luhan (telekinesis)  
> Chanyeol (fire) = Yifan (flight)  
> [Leader bond: Junmyeon (water) = Yifan (flight)]


	7. Lotto

The moment Jongdae arrived in Almaty, he fell in love. The place had all four seasons. It had summer storms that brought lightning and wind and rain. It had mountains and lakes. It was perfect.

“Seriously?” Jongin called over the railing of the second floor. “You had this whole place to yourself?”

“It makes my place in Florida look like shack,” Yifan quipped as he stretched himself out on the big couch until Minseok came and sat on his legs because he refused to move them.

Sehun walked into the living room looking vaguely unimpressed. “Where’s the pool? Surely a place this fancy’s got a pool.”

“Sorry. I guess you’ll have to do with the gaming system downstairs.”

Chanyeol shoved Sehun onto the couch and ran for the door that led to the basement. Baekhyun screamed something about his turn as he ran after them from the kitchen, but Sehun beat him to the stairs.

Zitao poked his head into the massive fridge. “You can’t even cook rice, Jongdae. Why did you get a house with such a big kitchen?”

“You got this place for us, didn’t you?” Yixing asked softly, barely audible above the muffled shouts of the kids fighting over the gaming controllers in the basement.

Jongdae nodded. “It took a lot of overtime...and weekends...and holidays, but I hoped someday we wouldn’t have to worry about hiding from the lab and we’d all end up together again, so I decided to go ahead and make this place a priority.”

Jongdae saw his bondmate’s extremely contented smile as he was already prepping something on the stove, and their bond seemed to purr with Kyungsoo’s happiness. That alone let Jongdae know he made the right decision.

Jongin was about finished memorizing the house’s layout so he could teleport anywhere he wanted within it with ease. He rejoined the group, taking his spot next to Luhan who was on the balcony looking out at the mountains.

Jongin frowned. He couldn’t help himself. He knew Luhan hated it when people nagged him about the future, but he had to know.

“Those robots had to have someone controlling them.” Jongin gripped the balcony railing tightly. “And are we really supposed to believe that the lab only made two power orbs?”

The city below was busy, but distinctly different from London. He wondered how long it would take him to get use to living here.

“I know we took care of the lab itself, but are we actually safe now? This is nice and all,” he threw a glance over his shoulder at his brothers inside, “and I’m so incredibly happy right now, but...does any of it  _ last? _ ”

The younger watched Luhan with a serious gaze. His bondmate never took his eyes off the horizon, but a soft, light smile graced his lips. “Nothing lasts forever, Jongin. Maybe we just got lucky?”

“Luhan,” Jongin whined, “don’t be cryptic. That’s just mean!”

Luhan laughed and walked back into the house. Jongin ran after him, complaining the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading until the end!
> 
> Fun notes:  
> -I know Kris had already left EXO before the Pathcode teasers, so in this AU I had him living in Florida while hiding from the Red Force because that's where the Kennedy Space Center/NASA is located because galaxy~  
> -In chapter 3, where it briefly mentions the different hallucinations that Jongdae has other than the ones of Kyungsoo (specifically the ones of Luhan suspended in time and them all gathered in Jongdae's house in Almaty)—those were because Jongdae's consciousness was coming into contact with Luhan's, so he was able to see them all in Jongdae's house in Almaty through Luhan's visions.


End file.
